1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for packaging film, in particular plastics film.
The term "film" as used herein includes, in addition to sheet film, gusseted or tubular film and also gusseted or tubular film which has been slit in the longitudinal direction.
2. Description of the prior art
Plastics film is conventionally stored and handled by being wound onto a centre core, e.g. a cardboard tube. The core is discarded once the film has been used. Alternatively, reeled film is conventionally supplied to a so-called conversion section where it is unwound mechanically or manually from a parent core and refolded by a continuous overhand method.
In the first case, the cost of the core has to be borne by the consumer and winding onto a central core increases the storage space needed and freight costs. In the second case, extra labour is required for re-packing and the length tolerance owing to human error is generally an average of about 2%. In use, packs of plastics film produced by folding as described above have the disadvantage that the customer has to unfold the dead weight of the pack and it is in practice impossible to ensure uniformity of the pack.